PTR - 2015's USA Trip : The Disneyest Holiday Ever

[zanzibar138]

The last of my DVC bookings has been made - 5 nights in Aulani to finish off the holiday.

Now to get working on the flights and other accommodation......

Awesome! It's all coming together nicely

 

[ColinA]

Yep they are. Both are deluxe studios.

They will probably let you stay in the same room as long as they are the same room view. Ask when you checkin.

 

[losfp]

Just fyi, I have been keeping an eye on Hawaiian airlines, when they are on special you can get return SYD - LA for just over $1200, with stops in Hawaii both directions though. This suits us well as we don't mind the stop over.

I'll keep an eye out too My feeling is that we will probably book all on QF/AA codeshare so we can get it all on one ticket, and have relatively easy options for lounge access. But if the right deal came up.....

Awesome! It's all coming together nicely

It sure is So now we've booked 27 nights out of 37. Just a few more to go

 

[lffam]

thats great news!

 

[losfp]

FLIGHTS HAVE NOW BEEN BOOKED!! #fistbump

SYD-DFW-MCO
MCO-LAX
LAX-HNL
HNL-SYD

2 adults, 2 kids, roughly $8500 total. QF/AA codeshare

Probably not the absolute best prices I could have gotten if I'd waited for sales etc. I budgeted about $10k in my holiday spreadsheet so I'm happy enough with that. Now that's locked in and I don't have to worry about exchange rate changes or whatever.

A bit under 9 months still to wait.. sigh.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Congrats on getting your flights booked. As you say, at least you don't have to worry about it anymore.

 

[Kristin5]

Well done on booking the flights - it always feels very real once those are locked in (and with the $ dropping rapidly, I'd be wanting to book them asap too).

 

[losfp]

Lots of spending in the last couple of weeks.

- Bought 2 10-day park hoppers for WDW for Wifey and Superseded Model (Baby Lee 2.0 will be 2.5 so will get in free)
- Bought 1 Premium Annual Passport for WDW for myself (which I will upgrade to a Premier Passport upon arrival in Florida)
- Booked 4 nights at Art of Animation @ WDW
- Booked 3 nights at Cabana Bay Beach Resort @ Universal Orlando
- Booked 1 night at Residence Inn @ Port Canaveral

So that's all the accommodation done. Next on the list:

- Rental car for Florida
- Rental car for Hawaii
- 10-day passes for Disneyland
- Cirque du Soleil (La Nouba) tickets
- Cruise reservations and shore tours
- WDW dining reservations

Phew!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Congrats on getting all the accommodation done!

 

[lffam]

coming together very well for you!

 

[losfp]

Heck of a fight doing my WDW ADRs the last few days, but I finally got most of it done. I might have overdone it, but what the hell, eh?

Fri 16
Chef Mickeys 10:50

Sat 17
~~Cindy's 10:20am~~ Will probably cancel as I got a pre-open reservation on the 25th
Crystal Palace 11:30
Plaza 6:20pm

Sun 18
Hoop Dee Doo 4:00pm

Mon 19
Hollywood and vine 11:00
Sci Fi 5:30pm

Tues 20
~~Be Our Guest 11:30am~~ Will probably cancel as I managed to get a reservation for the 25th, and this is the day we move from AOA to GF

Wed 21
Sanaa 5:15pm

Thurs 22
1900 Park Fare 5:05pm

Fri 23
Akershus 12:00pm
Biergarten 6:30pm

Sat 24
1900 Park Fare 8:00am
Ohana 5:05pm

Sun 25
Cindy's 8:05am
Be Our Guest 1:00pm

Mon 26
Coral Reef 11:35am
Yachtsman Steakhouse 5:30pm

 

[LivingforDisney]

Did you book these online?
I am dreading doing mine lol
I am so confused what time here I will be able to do them
Glad you got what you wanted.
What dates are you there?

 

[losfp]

Well, mostly online. I think there was a problem with my first resort reservation - it wouldn't let me book them online so I had to call the phone hotline for dining to book them. My dates are all in October, and I booked them pretty much within minutes of the clock ticking over to 6am EST on the 180-day mark. So at the moment that's 8pm AEST for online and 9pm for phone.

 

[LivingforDisney]

Ok thanks for that.
There is a rumour free dining is coming out next week, someone leaked some dates, but whether it's right, we'll see

 

[losfp]

I already booked all my accommodation (most of it on DVC rentals) so the dining plans weren't a factor for me.

 

[LivingforDisney]

Ok,

 

[PinkCupcakes]

Wow! Sounds like a great trip! Last Oct/Nov my dh and I plus our three dds who were 11,8 and 23 months at the time, did our first WDW trip. It was awesome! We were also very nervous about our almost 2 year old, but she was amazing! She actually handled the time difference better than the rest of us!
It's hard to be excited when you have people telling you, "you're crazy" for taking a 2 year old half way across the world. But, as you said, losfp - you can't put your life on hold. I definitely agree with this! Especially with two older kids, we can't stop everything until the youngest gets bigger. And now I can say "I did it! I took a 2 year old to the U.S. and we all survived!"lol!

 

[losfp]

Wow, 3 with one under 2. That would have been pretty hectic. At least the other two would have been old enough to take on some responsibilities too. We will have our 7 year old helping with one of the bags and mostly trusting her not to step in front of buses and the like as we will be concentrating on coralling the 2 year old who is much more adventurous.

 

[LivingforDisney]

I got the free dining , table service for our 14 nights in Dec. I had booked us into Allstar Sports and we were going to upgrade from QS to TS if the free offer came out, as we wanted to try the resturants this time, only did a couple in 2013.
Anyhow as I had a direct number to a guest correspondent, not sure the difference there between that and a cm? From a email I sent to Disney in Jan.
Anyhow I couldn't get through until last night and she wasn't there, so she called me back this morning and we are know booked at the Caribbean, park hoppers, see how we go with this and the free disney dining plan and it was only $165 more than staying at the allsports. She gave me a standard room, which I was grateful for as online there were only the more expensive ones left.
So I think I did ok?
Now just hoping I will be able to get all these add reservations when the time comes.

 

[LivingforDisney]

And hoping we will enjoy the Caribbean , as I know it's a huge resort. Argh